Larry Sanders launches ‘NHS Challenge’ in Witney by-election

Larry Sanders, the Green Party candidate in the Witney by-election, is launching a 3-point challenge to the other parties to match the Green Party’s support and save the NHS.

Larry Sanders was leader of the Green Group on Oxfordshire County Council for 8 years.

“The Government should stop privatization and adequately fund the NHS and social care. If the Witney constituency votes for a Green Party candidate who really supports the NHS and social care, the Government will have to shift direction. My brother Bernie changed American politics by winning unexpected support. Witney can change Britain.

Political change can save the Horton Hospital, Witney Community Hospital and Deer Park surgery.

Lip service is easy. The only real solutions are enough money and an end to privatisation.”

The 3-point challenge involves:

1. Fully funding the NHSWithout additional funding the NHS is facing a £20 billion gap in its finances by 2020-21. “We are already short of GPs, hospital doctors, and hospital beds,” says Larry. “Severe cuts are being announced or leaked almost every day. The Green Party is committed to providing that amount, half in the first year.”2. Halting privatisationOrganising the NHS to make privatisation possible has added about £9 billion per year in administrative costs; it has led to expensive and damaging fragmentation and large sums are being siphoned off in private profit. The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) has increased the cost of borrowing to build new hospitals by more than £40 billion. “The Green Party has introduced the NHS Reinstatement Bill to Parliament. This will reverse past privatisation, prevent future privatisation and restore the unity of the NHS.”3. Restoring cuts to social careMillions of elderly people need social care to help them get out of bed, eat, get dressed, meet with other people and take some of the pressure from their families. Family carers are often in their 80s and 90s. But there have been huge cuts in grants to local authorities. “The Green Party proposes to restore those billions of cuts and provide care on the same basis as the NHS: free at the point of need.”

Larry Sanders added: “We spend 25% less on health care than other countries of comparable wealth. Matching that would solve our funding problems. Why should we be so different? The Green Party answer is that we can afford good quality Health and Social Care, we only need the political will. We can afford to care for each other.”